


Mechanical Hearts

by Kamemor



Category: RWBY
Genre: (not stated in as many words but that's absolutely how I was writing her), Autistic Penny Polendina, Canon Disabled Character, Cross-Generational Friendship, Disabled Character, Gen, Volume 7 (RWBY)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27681814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamemor/pseuds/Kamemor
Summary: At the end of 'Worst Case Scenario', James decides to talk to Penny about how she's feeling after the warehouse massacre.  What follows is a surprisingly frank and heartfelt conversation about the value of friends, their worries over the current situation, and the feelings of solidarity that can unexpectedly arise between a robot and a cyborg. Also, there's hugging.
Relationships: James Ironwood & Penny Polendina
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18
Collections: Genuary 2021





	Mechanical Hearts

“Penny,” said James, as she turned to follow Winter and Oscar into the elevator. “Can I have a word?” Penny stopped where she was and gave a small nod. At Winter’s quizzical frown and half step back towards them, James raised a hand slightly. “You go on, Winter. We might be a little while. Oscar, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Winter stepped back, but she still looked concerned. James might have smiled at that, had he been in a better mood. The young woman had really taken to Penny over the last year or so, even if she’d be the last to admit it, and had become rather protective. It was nice to see.

“Goodnight, sir,” said Oscar, then the elevator doors swished shut and suddenly James and Penny were alone. Once again, James noted how subdued Penny was. In fact, he was reasonably certain that he hadn’t heard her speak once all day. It was very out of character, and a big part of why he wanted to talk to her now.

“Come into my office,” he said, gesturing for Penny to follow him. Glancing back a few times to make sure she was doing so, as she still hadn’t made any sort of verbal acknowledgement, he led the way all the way to the panoramic windows behind his desk and stopped before them, looking out across the city. He watched Penny’s reflection join his in the glass. They both stood there for a long moment, Penny fidgeting and James standing with his hands clasped behind his back.

“...Sir?” Penny eventually asked, her voice small. “What did you want to talk about?” James looked over and down at her, took a deep breath, and unclasped his hands so that he could lay one gently on her shoulder.

“How are you doing, Penny?” he asked, gently. She looked up at him, apparently surprised by this line of questioning.

“I…” she said, trailing off. “I… don’t know.” She looked back down at her hands, which she was still gently wringing together. Suddenly realising that he hadn’t planned what to say beyond this point, James cast around for a follow up comment.

“That’s alright,” he eventually settled on. “You don’t have to know. But… sometimes it helps to talk these things through?” He found himself turning that statement into a question. He didn’t exactly have a lot of experience of this himself. “I think… I think I understand a little of what you might be feeling, and I thought I might be able to help you make sense of it. I-if you want, that is.” He stammered slightly, feeling awkward but pushing through it. 

“You… want to talk about feelings?” asked Penny, looking back up at him, her big green eyes wide. “We have never done that before.”

“I know,” said James. He sighed. “And maybe that was wrong of me. But I’m willing to try something new if you are.” He gave Penny an awkward smile, and took his hand off of her shoulder, folding it behind his back again. “So, what do you say?” Slowly, a small smile spread across Penny’s face.

“I would like that very much,” she said. Then her smile faded, turned into a frown. “But… talking about feelings is difficult. I don’t feel like I know the right words.” James snorted gently.

“I don’t either,” he said. “But we can try.” He glanced around the office, trying to figure out where the best place to have this conversation was. He pulled a face. “I… may not have thought this through very well. I don’t have a second chair in here.” Penny giggled slightly. “I suppose we could… sit on the floor?”

“I have a better idea,” said Penny. “There is a place I like to go to when I want to think. We could go there, if you don’t mind flying.” James felt his eyebrows raise and a small involuntary smile flicker across his face.

“You’re offering to take me flying?”

“Yes,” said Penny. “Not very far. But even if it was far, I wouldn’t drop you.”

“... I’m glad to hear it,” said James, who hadn’t previously considered that outcome and was now trying hard not to consider it. “So, where is this place?” 

“It should be a surprise,” said Penny, surprisingly firmly. She’d perked up considerably in a matter of seconds, although James knew a temporary attempt to distract oneself when he saw it. He was glad that she finally felt able to do that - it was definitely an improvement on being too miserable to even try. But James still felt a slight pang in his chest over how even a clumsy attempt to talk like he was making now was a big deal to Penny. Did people really pay that little attention to her feelings? Had he?

It took a few minutes for them to walk to a balcony that was open to the air, and a little bit longer to figure out how Penny would fly James to her secret spot. They eventually settled on her gripping his right wrist with both hands while he also held on and, with only a little bit of wobbling, the two of them were able to take off. 

“Hold on tight, sir,” said Penny, as she rocketed up into the air. James found himself grinning at the rush. Flying like this was very different to propelling himself through the air with recoil, which was really more like directional falling with brief moments of intense acceleration. Penny’s acceleration, on the other hand, was continuous, and she was much more manoeuvrable in the air than he could ever manage to be. James actually laughed out loud, and Penny responded with an extra burst of speed that carried them high above the Academy spires.

“This is incredible!” he called, over the rush of wind. “The view…!” He heard Penny laugh, and she spun them both slowly around in a circle. The view from this height truly was incredible. He could see all the way to the edges of Atlas, to the boundary walls of Mantle, to the mountains far across the tundra. And, looking up, the sky was an infinite tapestry of stars. No wonder Penny spent so much of her time flying. 

After far too short a time, they alighted on the roof at the top of one of the Academy spires. It wasn’t the tallest, but it was the furthest from the centre and gave a spectacular view of Mantle, spread out below in a spiderweb of lighted streets.

“This is my spot,” said Penny, a hint of pride in her voice. “It has the best view in the city.”

“I think you’re right,” said James, turning in a circle to take in the full panorama. When he returned to face in the original direction, he saw that Penny had sat down on the edge of the roof, and so he joined her. Initially, automatically, he went to sit on her right, but then he changed his mind. Keeping people on his left kept his flesh and blood side closest to them, but maybe that didn’t matter with Penny.

“I… suppose we should talk about feelings now,” said Penny, after a long minute of them sitting side by side on the edge of the roof. “But I do not know where to start.”

“Does your father talk to you about feelings?” asked James, who had now had a few minutes to think about how to prompt this particular conversation and felt a little more prepared than he had earlier.

“Oh, yes,” said Penny. “Father is very open about his feelings and encourages me to talk about mine. I like that about him, very much.” She frowned slightly. “But I don’t always know how to talk to him when I’m sad. It makes him sad, and I do not like upsetting him.”

“Have you talked to him about the events at the rally?” James asked.

“Yes but also no. I talked very briefly about what happened, but I did not talk about how it made me feel.” She looked down at her hands, clenching them in her lap. “I know he is upset about what people are saying about me. About how I should be deactivated.”

“You’re upset about that, too,” said James. It didn’t need to be a question - he could see it in her tense shoulders and the wringing of her hands.

“Yes,” said Penny, quietly. “I do not want to die again.” James’s breath caught. The way she said that… “And I do not like that people say deactivate. It means they do not see me as a person. I know I am not… the same as they are, but that does not mean I am not a person.” Suddenly, she looked up at James. “You do not always talk about me like I am a person.” The tone was level, matter of fact rather than accusatory, but it hit James like a punch to the gut.

“I…” 

“You sometimes talk about me like I’m a weapon, or an AK droid,” continued Penny. “I don’t think you mean to, but you do. And I understand. You are used to robots who are not people, not people who are also robots.”

“That… isn’t an excuse,” James managed to say, eventually. “I never meant for you to feel like I didn’t think you’re a person. I don’t think that. I…”

“But you make an effort to understand.” Penny cut across him again, seemingly barely listening to what he was saying. “I am glad some people do, even if the people on the news do not. It makes it hurt less.” James had no idea how to respond to that. Had he really made Penny feel like less than a person? And, worse, was it so normal for her to feel that way that she wasn’t even able to get angry about it?

“I’m sorry,” said James. He didn’t know what else to say. “I… know a little of what it’s like to be made to feel like less than a person, so… I’m sorry.”

“Because of your prosthetics?” asked Penny, her gaze flickering to his right hand, which was folded in his lap. James nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “But, uh, we’re not here to talk about me.”

“Oh, no,” said Penny. “If I get to talk about my feelings, you get to talk about yours. Otherwise it isn’t fair.” She looked up at him. “I don’t think you talk about your feelings much to anyone.” James gave a small, humourless laugh. 

“I’m the general,” he said, his tone more bitter than he’d intended it to be. “I don’t get to have feelings, much less talk about them.”

“Why not?” asked Penny. James was momentarily surprised by that, then remembered who he was talking to. Cynicism wasn’t something Penny had really learned yet. He tried to figure out how to put the concept he’d hinted at into words.

“Because…” He trailed off, then started again. “It’s like what you said about not talking to your father about some things because you don’t want to upset him. Except it’s worse, because I’m always the one who’s supposed to be older or more experienced or more capable. If I told people I was struggling, it would worry them. And they might not trust me to make the right decisions any more.”

“I think I understand,” said Penny, slowly. She frowned. “That seems very unfair. It means there is no one you can talk to about your feelings in the whole of the Atlas military.” James sighed.

“That’s an accurate summary, yes.”

“You should have more friends,” said Penny, matter-of-factly, like this was the obvious solution. “Friends make things better.” James shook his head.

“I don’t have time for friends,” he said. This time, it was Penny’s turn to shake her head.

“You have told me that before, and you said the same about me. But I have felt so much better since Ruby and her friends arrived. And I have gotten better at my job because it is more enjoyable. I think you are wrong about friends.” James blinked. He’d wanted Penny to open up to him, but he definitely hadn’t anticipated her being this bluntly critical. Not that she was being mean about it, but that was almost worse.

“I, uh…”

“I would like to be your friend, if I can,” said Penny, and that brought him up short in a different direction. James felt like he might get dizzy trying to keep up. “I know you said things are complicated when you are someone’s commanding officer, and I am a lot younger than you, but I think it is worth a try.”

“Really?” said James, at a loss for what else to say.

“Oh, yes,” said Penny. Then she looked down at her hands again, suddenly less sure of herself. “You… make me feel less alone. I want to do the same for you. If I can.” Now James really had no idea how to respond. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, and eventually settled for reaching over and placing a companionable hand on Penny’s shoulder. She reached up and put her hand over his. “No one should feel alone,” she continued. 

“How do I… make you feel less alone?” James eventually managed to ask. Penny squeezed his hand. His metal hand. “Oh,” he said. “I…”

“You always wear gloves, so I know you have complicated feelings about your prosthetics,” said Penny. “I still feel strange about my new legs, even though my old ones were just as mechanical, and your original limbs were completely different to the ones you have now. But… there is no one else like me, so even something small…”

“I understand,” said James, and he did. He really did. His situation was unique, the amount of his body that had been reconstructed otherwise unheard of in medical science, but he still felt solidarity with anyone who had lost a limb. Or was disabled in any other way, too. They might not share the exact same struggles, but there was enough overlap that you knew they would at least partially understand. It surprised him, to learn that Penny felt the same way about him, and if he were being honest he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that. He struggled with the idea that people thought of him as more a machine than a man. But that was something he’d have to unpack on his own time. 

He sighed. “I’m… not sure if I can talk about my injuries and my feelings about being rebuilt tonight, Penny. I wish I could, but it’s a difficult subject for me.”

“I understand,” said Penny. “I will be here if you want to talk about it, and I will be here if you don’t.” She tilted her head slightly. “Well, not here. I can’t stay up here all the time.” James laughed slightly. He squeezed Penny’s shoulder again, and then extracted his hand from under hers, letting it fall back into his lap.

“I know what you meant, and I appreciate it. There are quite a lot of things that we could talk about, aren’t there?”

“Yes,” said Penny. “Like what?” she asked, her head still tilted. James finally had a natural opportunity to circle the conversation back to the events in the warehouse, and he took it.

“Well, for one thing, the way you were framed last night? A similar thing happened to me at Beacon.”

“Oh,” said Penny. “Do you mean how the AK-200s were hacked?” James nodded.

“Yes.” He grimaced. This was difficult for him to talk about, but he had to try. “My own troops, that I brought with me to protect the people of Vale and the students at the Festival, were turned against me. Were used to hurt people I was sworn to protect. And at first, some people thought I did it deliberately.” He clenched both his fists in his lap. “After all, the news showed Atlas troops attacking civilians. _My_ troops. And what makes it worse is that it _was_ my failure. It shouldn’t have been possible for my troops to be hacked like that. Everyone they killed, the blood is on my hands.” James stared into the middle distance, the screams that still haunted his nightmares playing just on the edge of his hearing, that damn black chess piece floating before his mind’s eye on a background red as the blood spilled that night…

Penny’s hands on his snapped him out of it. Her small hands held both of his, grounding him back in the present.

“That’s not true,” she said. “Cinder did that, not you. The bad things she did are not your fault.” James looked up at her, and managed a fraction of a smile because that was the opening he’d been hoping for.

“Then you’re not to blame for what happened in that warehouse,” he said. “If I’m not guilty, then neither are you. Otherwise it isn’t fair.” Penny’s eyes widened, but James couldn’t tell if it was in recognition of her own words from earlier, or just the content of what he had said. 

“That’s different,” said Penny, letting go of his hands and shrinking back into herself.

“It’s not,” said James. Even though it was, just not in the way she meant. Even though he absolutely was to blame for the events in Vale, but he had to stick with the comparison in order to convince Penny. Because that massacre wasn’t her fault in the least, and she had to believe that. “You didn’t hurt anyone. In fact, you tried your best to help. No one could have asked anything more of you.”

“Then why do I feel so bad?” she asked, hugging herself, her voice small. Something snapped in James and he decided military propriety could be damned. He put his arm around Penny’s shoulders and pulled her in close to his side. She clung onto him tightly in return.

“Because you care,” he said softly, into her hair. “And it hurts to care. Brothers know it hurts. I don’t know how to make it stop hurting. Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier not to care, but I don’t know how to stop doing that either.”

“I don’t want to stop caring,” said Penny, voice still small and muffled against his chest.

“I know,” said James. “Neither do I.” And he didn’t, no matter how much, in his darkest moments, he might envy people who could be heartless. Who didn’t hurt so much because they kept trying to do the right thing no matter how many times it was thrown back in their face.

James rubbed gentle circles into Penny’s shoulder with his hand and bit his lip, swallowing the lump in his throat. He thought back to what she had said earlier, about people talking about ‘deactivating’ her as if she were simply a machine and not a person, and wondered what those people would think if they could see Penny now. A scared, sad teenage girl who needed a hug from someone who could tell her she was going to be okay. Which wasn’t him, not really, but at least he could manage the hug.

And was she even a teenager? James couldn’t remember exactly how long ago it was that she’d first been activated, or what Pietro had said about relative aging, but Penny socialised with teenagers like she was one of them so that was how James thought of her. But Brothers, she was young. They all were. Penny, Ruby, Weiss, Yang, all of them. Far too young to be carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders.

That was something James hated himself for, putting the burden of Ozpin’s secrets onto Winter, Penny and the others. He hated that they were secrets in the first place, was counting down the days until he could drag Salem out into the light, and yet he’d still spread the burden onto their shoulders because he’d been on the verge of collapsing under it himself. Hypocrite.

Feeling Penny’s shoulders shake slightly, he had to swallow hard again to keep his own emotions from spilling over. He couldn’t put all that on Penny, it wouldn’t be fair. He could be her friend, a source of support, and he could even share some of his complicated feelings about the things that they had in common, but to lean on her for emotional support would be wrong. He was still the adult, still the senior officer, still the one with a duty of protection. Penny wasn’t his peer, she was a child, and it was important to remember that.

But James still rested his head on hers and closed his eyes, taking what comfort he could from Penny hugging him back. Knowing that his presence was comforting her helped. Her genuine desire to be his friend because she thought he needed it too meant a lot as well. Too often, it felt like people just wanted things from him, but Penny wasn’t like that. She was one of the most genuine, straight-forward and kind-hearted people that he knew.

That scared him, when he thought about it too much. Because he knew what the world did to idealistic teenagers who cared too much. The things they lost along the way. The parts of themselves, figuratively but sometimes also literally, that they’d never get back. 

Penny’s hands were bunched in his coat and he could feel that, but all he felt of her shoulder against his side and his arm around her was a sensation of pressure from the limited sensors in his right side. He knew Penny had much more advanced senses, and wondered what the close contact with his prosthetics felt like to her. Could she hear the faint whine of the electronics, or the operation of his artificial lung? Was it comforting to her? It was a strange thought. He’d have to sit with it some more, but… Maybe if his cybernetic parts helped her to cope with existing as a technological person in a biological world, he could come to see that as a positive thing. Maybe.

Eventually, Penny sniffed and stirred slightly, pulling away from the hug. James let her, his arm dropping back to his side.

“Thank you,” she said, softly.

“Of course,” said James. But part of him knew that saying that didn’t change the fact that Penny probably hadn’t felt able to seek comfort like that from him before now. He’d never communicated that it was something she was allowed to do, and Penny needed to know she had permission to do things. “Um… I’m okay with you hugging me,” he said, awkwardly. “If… that’s something you ever want to do.”

“Really?” asked Penny, her eyes widening. James nodded. “Whenever I want?” James quickly opened his mouth to say something about ‘only when it’s appropriate’, but stopped when he realised that would just put them right back where they had been before. He thought for a moment.

“If you ask me first, then yes,” he eventually said. “It’s… not always appropriate and sometimes I can’t, uh… I don’t…” 

“You do not always like being touched,” said Penny, surprising him with the insightfulness of the comment. He nodded. “I understand. I will make sure I always ask.” She smiled. “I am glad that I know I can hug you now. I do not think you get a lot of hugs either.” James laughed slightly. He couldn’t help it. Sometimes he forgot just how much attention Penny paid to the people around her. Understanding didn’t come naturally to her, so she had to work at it, and she worked very hard.

“You might be right,” he said. “It’s another side effect of being the general. It’s not very proper to hug your subordinates.”

“I don’t care much for what is ‘proper’,” said Penny, frowning slightly in distaste. “Winter cares a lot about being proper, and I can tell it makes her sad. Being proper does not seem to be good for people.” James blinked.

“I… suppose I’ve never really thought about it like that,” he admitted. “But it’s not all bad. It’s important to be polite to people, and to be respectful.” He felt a little defensive. So much of how he approached the world was based around systems and standards of behaviour, and he didn’t like having that challenged.

“I suppose,” said Penny. “I guess nothing is all good or all bad.” James nodded, relaxing a little. 

“Things are what you make of them,” he said, agreeing. “And it might reassure you to know that I hugged Qrow the night he and the others arrived.” He was changing the subject, he knew, but Penny seemed too pleased by the admission to mind.

“I am very glad to hear that,” she said, smiling. “Qrow is your friend, isn’t he?”

“I hope so,” said James. Penny tilted her head, quizzically. “Qrow and I have… a complicated relationship,” he continued by way of an explanation. “We argue a lot, and we’ve hurt each other before, but…”

“You care about him.”

“I do,” said James, nodding. 

“He cares about you, too,” said Penny, confidently. James frowned slightly, and found himself imitating her head tilt.

“How do you know that?”

“Ruby told me,” she explained. “He talks about you sometimes, and she says it reminds her of how he talks about her dad. ‘Like he loves him but he drives him crazy too,’ she said.” James couldn’t help but laugh again.

“That’s how I feel about him,” he admitted. He didn’t say how much it meant to him to have genuine proof of Qrow’s feelings towards him. That was… private.

“You should spend more time together,” said Penny. “I feel a lot better now that I am spending time with Ruby and getting to know her other friends. Father is wonderful and I like Winter a lot, but it is nice to have friends who are my age. And I do not know for sure, but I think Qrow is as old as you.” James chuckled.

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” he said. “He doesn’t like being called old. And neither of us are, not really. We’re just older than you.” He bumped Penny’s shoulder with his, and she giggled. Then she leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“This is nice,” she said. “I like spending time with just you.”

“We haven’t done that a lot, have we?” said James. 

“No,” said Penny. “But I understand. We are both very busy.” James nodded, and sighed. 

“And likely to get busier now that the election is over.” He pulled a face. “I’m not looking forward to the dinner tomorrow night.” Penny sighed too.

“Me neither,” she said, her voice subdued again. “I… do not think I want to go.”

“I wish it was that simple,” said James. “I know you want to hide away from the people that are judging you, but it won’t help. They’ll just take it as evidence that the things they believe are true.” He leaned into her slightly. “But don’t worry. Your father has downloaded your visual data, and soon we’ll be able to use it to prove what really happened in the warehouse. People will know that you didn’t attack anyone.”

“I hope so,” said Penny. “But people do not always believe the truth.”

“No, they don’t.” James was surprised to realise that the cynicism in that statement made him sad. As much as he found his own cynicism a shield against disappointment from the world, part of him had hoped that Penny wouldn’t need to develop her own. In that area, he supposed, he’d been naive. “But we can hope,” he said. Penny nodded, her head still leaning on his shoulder.

“Are you worried about what Councilman Schnee will say about you? He doesn’t like you very much.”

“The feeling’s entirely mutual,” said James, a little darkly. “But I can handle Jacques Schnee. I’m more concerned about the other councillors. I know they… have their doubts about how I’ve been handling the current situation, and I fear that Schnee’s hostility towards me will embolden them. And with him, they have a majority against me.”

“But isn’t that how democracy is supposed to work?” asked Penny. “They are supposed to be able to disagree with you.” James sighed, irritated.

“Yes, but none of them know the full truth of what is going on. If they make a decision that actively works against our plans to combat Salem…” Penny lifted her head and looked up at him.

“Why don’t you tell them the truth?” she asked. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about them not knowing. And you are planning on telling the whole world eventually.” James shook his head.

“It’s not the right time,” he said. “There’s too much going on, and I can’t risk exposing the Amity Project before it’s completed.”

“But-”

“No, Penny,” he said, firmly, trying not to snap. “I have a plan, and I’m sticking to it.” Penny frowned slightly, and went back to sitting upright. She looked a little hurt. He sighed. “I’m sorry, Penny, I’m not angry at you. It’s just… this whole situation is… difficult. I have to trust my own judgement and not second guess myself, or everything could fall apart.”

“I understand,” said Penny, but she still seemed a little distant. Internally, James cursed his temper for ruining the moment. He still felt the sensory ghost of her presence against his side, and its absence. He rubbed his face with his hands and sighed.

“It’s getting late,” he said. A little clumsily, he clambered to his feet and held out a hand to Penny as an offer of help. Instead of taking it, she pushed forward, dropping slightly into the open air beyond the edge of the roof before her boot jets engaged and she floated back up and alighted in front of him. Despite himself, he smiled. If he had the ability to fly, he’d use it like that as well.

“I can fly you back to your office, sir,” said Penny, formally. “Or to your quarters, if you would prefer.”

“My office is fine,” said James. He sighed, rubbed his face again. “I’ve got a lot to do to prepare for tomorrow.” Penny looked up at him, and something changed in her expression.

“Can I hug you first?” she asked. James blinked, not expecting that. 

“I… thought I just upset you.”

“You did,” said Penny, honestly. “But you apologised. And I know you are tired and stressed and that makes you snap at people. A hug would make us both feel better.” James smiled, gently. She really was a good kid.

“Yes, it would,” he said. He spread his arms a little. “You can hug me.” Penny smiled, and flung her arms around his midsection, squeezing tightly. James laughed as he had to take half a step backwards, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. He was glad he’d made the decision to talk to Penny tonight. She seemed to be feeling a lot better than she had earlier, and he felt like their relationship had progressed more in the last hour than it had in months of working together. Sometimes pushing through his natural awkwardness and making an effort really did pay off. Maybe Oscar was right, but then again somehow he didn’t think that tactic had any real chance of working against Jacques Schnee…

But he wasn’t going to think about that right now, at least not for a few more minutes. He held Penny close and stared out over the city and made a conscious effort to just exist in this moment. To appreciate the view, Penny’s arms around him, and the warm feeling in his chest from knowing that she thought he had value as a friend. That he was more to her than just her boss.

That, just by existing, he made her feel less alone. 

Standing there with Penny’s head resting on his chest, right over his heart, he realised for the first time that he felt the same way about her.


End file.
